Colonel Ken Callahan
Colonel Ken Callahan is the Commander, Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps, Detachment 220 and Professor of Aerospace Studies at Purdue University. Prior to his current assignment, he was the Air War College Associate Dean at Maxwell AFB, Alabama. Colonel Callahan is a command pilot with more than 3,000 hours in the C-141, C-5, T-37, and MQ-1B and has deployed numerous times in support of combat operations.
From 2009 to 2010, he commanded the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, overseeing all Air Force remotely piloted launch, recovery, and base defense activities in Iraq. Colonel Callahan also served as the Director for Remotely Piloted Aircraft Capabilities, Headquarters Air Staff, the Pentagon, Washington D.C., where he advised the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance on current and future remotely piloted aircraft capabilities and policies.
Colonel Callahan entered the Air Force in 1992 as a distinguished military graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. Throughout Colonel Callahan’s career, he has assessed, recommended, and integrated new technologies for combat operations in the Air Force. At U.S. Transportation Command, he formed and led an office responsible for assessing new asset in-transit visibility technology and, while on the Air Staff, he worked in the A2 Innovations office assessing the utility and viability of defense contractor research projects. Colonel Callahan has a Doctorate of Management focusing on organizational leadership and the integration of disruptive technologies and a Ph.D. in History specializing in twentieth century American history and the history of technology
